INQUIRY BY DESIGN: TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTBEHAVIOUR RESEARCH - JOHN ZEISEL
INTRODUCTION: 'Inquiry By Design' is a sort of philosophy. 'Inquiry By Design' is characterized by the notion of asking, examining, investigating, questioning and therefore learning through design. It involves observing behavior, interviewing, analyzing... effective researching to enhance design. Research doesn't have to be scientific, just exploratory. How can we make design better? By learning from what has already been accomplished, by measuring the qualities and analyzing impact. That is 'Inquiry By Design
The Book INQUIRY BY DESIGN DESIG N does a remarkable remarkable job of teaching the whole scope of social-science methods, from philosophy of science to doorstep interviewing, without the prerequisites that would exclude many designers from the usual text. This book is about using environment -behavior research to make better design decisions and to develop knowledge.
Inquiry by Design" lays out fundamental theoretical approaches to design and research as well as practical research methods applicable to planning, programming, and evaluating physical environments. It systematically describes basic methods of research and how to apply them and shows how collaboration between designers and researchers leads to greater design creativity.
A lively, non-technical explanation of how, to integrate research and design and how to carry out research on people and groups that is useful to designers. The book explains how to tailor sociological, psychological, and anthropological methods for the study of environment behavior issues such as how to prevent tourists from getting lost in a city or how to build low income housing projects that will not be vandalized. Social scientists, designers, architects, and planners will appreciate this practical account of how and when, in programming, design reviews, and evaluation, to undertake environment behavior research.
REVIEW:
The book has two parts Part 1: discuss design, research, and what researchers and designers can achieve if they work together
Part 2: describe how to carry out Environment-behavior research to achieve specific purposes
Chapter 7: Observing physical traces (Observing physical traces such as paths across a lawn or decorations on a living room wall, to see how people have affected their physical surroundings )
Chapter 8: Observing environmental behavior (observing behavior in its environmental context to see how people use physical settings)
Chapter 9: Focused Interviews (Focused interviewing to probe how individuals define specific situa tions they have experienced)
Chapter 10: Standardized questionnaires (using structural questionnaires to gather data about perceptions, attitude and aspirations that can be summarized across individuals to groups)
Chapter 11: Asking questions: topics and format
Chapter 12: Archives (analysis of data which is collected using above methods and giving implications in architecture.
OBSERVING PHYSICAL TRACES
Observing physical traces means systematically looking at physical surroundings to find reflections of previous activities not produced in order to measured by researchers Observing physical traces: Qualities of the Method: a) Imageable: y
Observing physical traces provides rich impressions and is highly illustrative
b) Unobtrusive: It does not influence the behavior that caused the trace
c) Durable: Traces which doesn¶t disappear quickly .wh ich give researchers a advantage
d) Easy: Physical traces observations are generally in expensive and quick to yield interesting information
Recording Devices: a) Annotated diagrams: y
Recording traces verbally and diagrammatically , requires little preparation and no skills. This is especially when the setting is simple and objective standardized
b) Drawings:
If observers have skill of making sketches of the t race they see, the time it take may worthwhile. Drawings are extremely useful in final reports because they are highly imageable and inexpensive to produce
c) Photographs: Photographs of physical traces taken at the beginning of a research project can give all parties working on it an initial overview of the types of things they likely see in the field. Photographs are particularly valuable if research site is not easily accessible. Requires special permission to visit
d) Counting: Certain traces yield their full value when their quantity is taken into account
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What to look for in physical traces By products of use
Erosions Leftovers Missing traces
Adaptation for use
Props Seperations Connections Display of self
Personalization Identification Group membership Public messages
Official Unofficial Illegitimate
This chapter has discussed categories of traces particularly appropriate for E-B observations. The first category represents remnants of what people do in an environment. The others what people do to it. This way of looking is aimed at increasing our ability to intervene through design to make settings better suited to what people actually do
OBSERVING ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOR Observing behavior means systematically watching people use their environments: individuals, pairs of people, small groups, and large groups. What do they do? How do activities relate to one another spatially? And how do spatial relations affect participants? At the same time, observers of environmental behavior look at how a physical environment supports or interferes with behaviors taking place within it, especially the side effects the setting has on relationships between individuals or groups.
Qualities of the Method
Empathetic: Researchers observing people soon get a feeling for the character of a situation. Observation, especially participant observation, allows researchers to "get into" a setting: to understand nuances that users of that setting feel
Direct: Dynamic: As you look at people doing things, what you see changes: activities affect other activities; episodes take place
Variably intrusive: Researchers have to decide how far they will intrude and from what social and physical vantage point they want to participate in observed events
Observers' Vantage Points Observers can choose to be outsiders or participants in any situation. As outsiders, they may be secret observers or recognized ones; as participants, either marginal or full.
Secret outsider: Recognized outsider:
Marginal participant: Researchers who adopt the vantage point of a commonly accepted and unimportant participant want to be seen by actual participants as just another patient in a hospital waiting room, another subway rider, or another art student drawing in a park. A marginal-participant vantage point is a comfortable one for E-B researchers to adopt because observant professionals and laypersons adopt it naturally in daily situations.
Full participant: To observe behavior, researchers can use positions they already are in and positions they adopt central to the situation they are studying. Full participants in a study of housing design might be residents of a neighborhood. A study to plan an office might be helped by researchers taking jobs as office clerks and typists.
Recording Devices Devices suited to recording behavior observations include verbal descriptions and diagrams, precoded checklists for counting, floor plans or maps, still photographs, and film or videotape. What devices to choose depends mainly on how much detailed information the problem demands and how much the observer already knows about the behaviors to be observed.
Notation: Recording behavior in verbal and diagrammatic notes demands that observers decide what to describe and what to overlook on the spot.
Precoded checklists: Descriptive notes provide a qualitative understanding of what is going on: what types of behavior patterns there are, what characteristics of participants are salient, and what level of descriptive abstraction is appropriate to solve a problem.
Maps: Recording activities on floor plans, diagrams, or maps is particularly convenient if
researchers want to observe and analyze several people in one general area at the same time
Photographs: Still photographs can capture subtleties that other methods may not record: the way someone sits on a chair or leans against a column; the way two persons avoid looking at each other by adjusting their body postures.
Videotapes and movies: Whenever time is a significant element in an E-B problem, motion photography- videotape or movies-ought to be considered
What to Observe Observing behavior looks like a simple E-B research technique. Everyone watches people every day. Doesn't everyone know how to do it? In a way, yes; but few know what to look for and how to analyze what they see so that it is useful to design.
Who: actor Doing what: act With whom: significant others Relationships: Context: People react to other people differently in one situation than in another and differently in one culture than in another. This is particularly important in environmental design research because the meanings people attribute to relationships determine how they react to environmental features, suchas walls, doors, and lights, that affect those relationships.
Setting: The meaning of behavior in a particular setting depends on the potential of the setting for use-the options it provides To design environments suited to what people do in them,
his chapter proposes that by looking at how environments affect people's ability to see, hear, touch, smell, and perceive each other, we can begin to understand how environments impinge on social behavior. Environmental elements that affect relationships include barriers, such as walls, screens, objects, and symbols; and fields, such as shape, orientation, size, and environmental conditions. Design decisions about these elements have identifiable side effects for social behavior. Environmental-behavior descriptions that can enable designers to improve control over behavioral side effects of their decisions include six elements: actor, act, significant others, relationships, context, and setting.
FOCUSED INTERVIEWS Asking questions in research means posing questions systematically to find out what people think, feel, do, know, believe, and expect. Normally when we think of an interview oral questionnaire, we think of the yes/no or multiple-choice questions of most public opinion polls. But such questions are fringe forms of a research tool of potentially much more penetrating power. You can use a focused interview with individuals or groups to find out in depth how people define a concrete situation, what they consider important about it, what effects they intended their actions to have in the situation, and how they feel about it.
PREINTERVIEW ANALYSIS AND INTERVIEW GUIDE To understand thoroughly how someone reacts to a situation, one must first analyze the structure of that situation, using theory and observational research methods
OBJECTIVES OF FOCUSED INTERVIEWS
Definition of the Situation: An individual's definition of a situation is the way she sees and interprets it-the personal light in which a particular event is cast. This definition influences the way she responds to that event.
Strength of Respondents' Feelings: Throughout any design project, decisions about priorities are made
Intentions: Observing behavior and physical traces tells investigators about unintended consequences of activities
BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FOCUSED INTERVIEWING 1. Persons interviewed are known to have been involved in a particular concrete situation: they have worked in the same office building, lived in the same neighborhood, or taken part in an uncontrolled but observed social situation, such as a tenants' meeting, a street demonstration, or a design review session.
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An E-B researcher has carried out a situational analysis to provisionally identify hypothetically significant elements, patterns, and processes of the situation. The researcher has arrived at a set of hypotheses about what aspects of the situation are important for those involved in it, what meaning these aspects have, and what effects they have on participants. 3. On the basis of this analysis, the investigator develops an interview wide, setting forth major areas of inquiry and hypotheses. 4. The interview about subjective experiences of persons exposed to the already-analyzed situation is an effort to ascertain their definitions of the situation
PROBES y
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Addition probes encourage respondents to keep talking-to keep the flow of the interview moving. Reflecting probes determine in a non directed way which of the analyzed topics in the interview guide are significant to the respondent and which new ones to add because they were overlooked. Transitional probes make sure that the respondent discusses a broad range of salient topics. Situational probes stimulate the respondent to specify what parts of a situation prompted the responses. Emotion probes encourage discussion in depth of how the respondent feels about each specified part of the situation. Personal probes get respondents to describe how the context of their lives influenced their reactions.
Transition Probes to Extend Range The range of an interview is the number of topics it covers relevant to the respondent and to the situation. Extensive range is often a measure of the quality of an interview.
Situation Probes to Encourage Specificity Specificity in the focused interview is a respondent's ability to state with precision. which elements in a situation she reacted to and in what way, rather than just saying that the situation as a whole had an effect on her.
Personal Probes to Tie In Context Reactions to environments have, as a rule, a dual chain of causes, the environment and characteristics of the reacting person.
FOCUSED INTERVIEWS IN GROUPS Many of the initial experiences of Merton et al. with focused interviews took place with groups, not individuals
Appeals for Equal Time: When one person takes over an interview, that person and others usually know it. Sometimes people even do so as a subtle challenge to the interviewer. It is your task to appeal to the person's sense of fair play in order to give others a chance to talk:
Attention to Body Language: Reticent respondents in a group often remain quiet, leaving the floor to the self-chosen leader.
Asking for a Vote: When discussion has been limited to several respondents, or when more respondents have contributed but it is unclear who holds what opinion, you can ask for a vote on an issue. You cannot find out how people see the world and feel about it unless you ask them.
The focused interview is uniquely suited to discovering a respondent's personal definition of complex E-B situations. Skilled interviewers analyze situations to develop a guide of interview topics. The purpose of the guide is limited to reminding the interviewer of topics and issues to cover. The skilled interviewer then enables the respondent to approach and discuss these topics in her own special way. To achieve full coverage and depth of insights, the interviewer's main tool is the probe: an indication by the interviewer to the respondent to provide more information about depth of feelings, other topics, the respondent's personal context, or details of a situation. Interviewers use probes to keep an interview flowing without directing it. Focused-interviewing techniques are as useful with groups as with individual respondents if the interviewer knows how to keep one member of the group from dominating and can encourage diversity of opinion rather than forced consensus.
STANDARDIZED QUESTIONNAIRES Standardized Questionnaires are used to discover regularities among groups of people by comparing answers to the same set of questions asked of a large number of people It Can be delivered by mail or through phone. Questionnaire provide useful data when investigators begin with a very well defined problem
Qualities Control: Interviewers structure questionnaires and control their administration
Intrusiveness: Control in administering questionnaires raises respondents can change and distort answers
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Convincing rigor: Organization If you are not organized the way questionnaires is structured can bore, confuse and tire respondents
Rapport: Questionnaire respondents participate in research project as informant about themselves. Rapport can be established by introducing oneself and the purpose of the interview clearly, honestly and realistically
Conditioning: Early questions can influence the way respondents later on es.
Fatigue: Maximum information gathering and minimize fatigue, through group event
Coding of open-ended responses No matter how researchers pose questions in an interview, they must record the answers and prepare them for counting and analysis
Mutual exclusiveness: It means Reponses fall either one or other category. There can be no overlapping, either numerically or conceptually.
Exhaustiveness: Exhaustiveness means that any possible response fits into some category
Single abstraction level: Single level of abstraction means that responses are conceptually parallel.
Precoding responses
Nominal: A simple nominal coding questions asks to answer either yes or no.
Ordinal: To analyze intensity, direction, and quality of such variables as verbally expressed attitudes and perceptions.
Visual responses Maps Drawings Photographs Games
Standardized questionnaires are useful if you know what you want to find out from people. If you want to find regularities among group of people with particular characteristics, if u want to be able to quantify your data
ASKING QUESTIONS: TOPICS AND FORMAT The quality of interview data rests heavily on whether questions address topics salient to respondents and to the researchers¶ purpose and on whether the question are asked so that answers may be clearly understood.
Topics Actual and abstract environments Environments to which people react include those they experience daily ± place, work, open spaces for play. Physical: Administrative Behavioral
People¶s responses Seeing Feeling Doing on Doing to Knowing
Linking and using the categories The question matrix
You want to ask questions that help you to solve problem. This chapter suggests that to achieve these ends in environment behavior, you must ask yourself the quality questions to construct interviews
ARCHIVES
Qualities Pragmatic: Researchers approach archives much as an architect approaching an old building on a site where they are chosen to build.
Imaginative: Researchers who want to draw information from archives not meant at all to be analyzed as a part of systematic research project must approach their problem imaginately. Historical: Part use and perception of environments can be essential contexts for understanding present use and perception. Using archives: The key to using archives is locating and gaining access to the document files Document files Differential accessibility Deposit and survival Definition of the situation Types of data Words Numbers Non verbal representations
Behavioral plan analysis Other people¶s perspectives Generic E-B issues Generic issues: specific users Unique-user group needs Reading people into plans Research- based scenarios Behavioral side effects Physical elements
The archives of documents ± from newspapers to institutional records can provide readymade available data for about the past. Investigators who overcome potential problems of access, completeness and relevance have access to varied types of data: word, numbers and non verbal representations
Conclusion : research is purposeful, systematic way to improve knowledge. Design can also contribute of knowledge when designers commit themselves to share what they know. y
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